On April 9, 2009, at three in the morning, many residents of the Upper Sava Valley and Austrian Carinthia were startled by the sound of drumming, eyewitnesses noticed a bright trail in the sky, and sky cameras recorded an extraordinary event. Meteor falling. The vast majority of meteors – we associate them with flashes – burn up in the atmosphere. But Jožef Pretnar from Spodnje Gorje found the first piece of a meteor – that is, a meteorite – on May 17th of the same year!  

It fell on Planski vrh. The Jesenice meteorite broke up into several fragments on its way through the Earth’s atmosphere. Three pieces have been found so far; the largest one, called BOJO, broke into several fragments when it fell and collided with the rocky base. 

The Jesenice meteorite is only the eleventh meteorite in the world for which astronomers have determined an orbit, or the exact path along which it traveled around the Sun. It originates from the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. It belongs to the stony chondrite meteorites and belongs to the very top of the world heritage. The meteorite from Planski vrh is named after the nearest larger place, i.e. Jesenice, as this is the established tradition of naming meteorites.

On display from 14 March to 7 May 2025

Author: Miha Jeršek